This conference contribution aims to present a conceptualization of educational technology brokers (henceforth ‘Edtech Brokers’) and their practices of mediation, focusing on case studies of Belgium and the U.K. Edtech brokers are defined as organizations that guide local schools in the procurement, adoption, and pedagogical use of edtech. This guidance occurs at the level of both hardware (laptops, tablets, smartboards) and software (apps, platforms, data infrastructures). 

Brokering actors have been studied in educational policy contexts (Grek et al., 2009; Williamson, 2014), and different effectiveness-oriented streams of research have pointed out the potential of brokers for bridging the research-practice gap in classroom settings (Neal et al., 2019; Neal et al.2022). Equally, critical work has previously scrutinized how brokers make specific forms of educational transformation thinkable, intelligible, and practicable (Bandolla-Gill, Grek & Tichenor, 2022; Ball, 2019; Hartong, 2016; Williamson, 2014).

Despite their potential to alter the nature of classroom practices around edtech and to reshape the boundaries between the private industry of edtech and state education, to date almost no studies have examined edtech brokers specifically as intermediary organizations between school settings and the edtech industry. As such, this paper aims to fill this gap by presenting the results of an up-close empirical examination of edtech brokers, their distinctive sub-categories, and their concrete effects in local school settings.

More precisely, the paper presents a categorization of three types of edtech brokers (ambassador, search engine, and data brokers) and shows their main practices of mediation. This categorization accounts for the multifariousness of brokers regarding their composition, influence on local school systems, and level of connectedness with wider policy and industry sectors. By focusing on practices (see Decuypere, 2021), we aim to investigate the concrete doings of broker organizations and gain insight into their distinctive operations as they unfold in specific contexts. The paper claims that edtech brokers’ practices of mediation materialize a set of possibilities, conditions, and constraints, for edtech usage in schools at the levels of (i) infrastructure, (ii) evidence building, and (iii) professional identity of the teacher.

To explore these questions, we find theoretical support in the work of Bruno Latour and Sheila Jasanoff in defining edtech brokers as mediators (in contrast to ‘intermediaries’). According to Latour (1994; 2004), an intermediary “is what transports meaning or force without transformation” (Latour, 2004, p. 39). By contrast, mediators “transform, translate, distort and modify the meaning of the elements they are supposed to carry” (Latour, 2004, p. 39). This distinction is particularly relevant for the case of edtech brokers, since it allows us to propose that they do not only neutrally “implement” or “apply” technology in education, but in doing so, they transform present and future possibilities for edtech usage and shape exchanges between schools and the industry. 

Importantly, mediators also push forward fabulations of social worlds, both utopic and dystopic. Jasanoff (2015) refers to these fabulations as sociotechnical imaginaries and defines them as “collectively held, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology” (p.4). This is central to understanding that mediations of edtech brokers invoke and materialize, through concrete practices, certain futures about education while rendering alternative options unlikely, undesired, or even impossible.

The research questions that guide this contribution are:

• What are brokers’ distinctive practices of mediation and in which ways do they shape edtech usage in schools?
• What are the sociotechnical imaginaries about education promoted by edtech brokers through their mediations? 

First, our categorization of edtech brokers is informed by a systematic online web search of grey literature (reports, governmental documents, and evaluations produced by governments, NOGs, civil society, non- and for-profit organizations, and consultants), focusing both on the transnational context (e.g., European Commission, UNESCO) as well as the countries of interest (Belgium, U.K.). As a result of this exploration, we conceptualized three types of edtech brokers that encompass the different types of edtech brokers that are currently operating at a European and global level: ambassador, search engine, and data brokers. Based on this categorization, and second, we analyzed three specific broker organizations that are currently operating in either Flanders or the U.K., each case being a prototypical example of each type of edtech broker. These companies are Belgian ambassador Broker Fourcast (previously known as Fourcast for Education), British search engine broker Edtech Impact, and British data broker Wonde. The data for our analysis were retrieved from the companies’ websites, their organizational reports, and their communications on social media. To better understand the distinctive characteristics of each organization within their country of operation, this information was contrasted and triangulated with the previously mentioned policy documents regarding school digitization both at a European level and at the national levels of U.K. and Belgium

First, we share an overview of the proposed categories of edtech brokers. In brief, ambassador brokers are the organizations that represent either a single technology provider (e.g., Google, Microsoft) or a selected sample of the edtech industry. Their main goal is to act as a representative or ‘ambassador’ of the brands they promote, encouraging their products and advocating for their educational potential. Search engine brokers are the organizations that work as search portals that focus on “delivering evidence” about what works in edtech. They have a strong emphasis on providing ‘bias-free advice’ and ‘evidence-based recommendations’ (Hillman, 2022). Lastly, data brokers are the organizations that support schools in managing, regulating, and analyzing the data produced by schools when using edtech. They act as gatekeepers of the information of schools, and hence regulate and moderate the data flow between schools and edtech companies. Second, we disentangle three main practices of mediation of brokers and the imaginaries that give support to, and materialize through, these mediations. The first practice shows how brokers contribute to building the infrastructure of schools. Our main claim is that edtech brokers play a significant role in deciding the form of schools’ digital infrastructure, and this process is guided by imaginaries that promote values of fast adaptability and easiness of use. The second practice depicts how brokers use different evidentiary mechanisms to guide the adoption and usage of edtech into schools. This practice is supported by the sociotechnical imaginary of pushing forward a scientifically reliable transformation that immunizes schools against inefficient edtech. Finally, the third practice of mediation focuses on how brokers promote a particular professionality of teachers. Through different forms of pedagogical training and guidance, brokers push forward the imaginary of the teacher as a proactive professional that is always learning and even inspiring change colleagues and students.

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